Rillettes

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Healthy, low-fat, and nutritious are just a few words that would be entirely inappropriate when describing rillettes. It is in fact, breathtakingly un-healthy, being composed entirely of meat and fat but, as with all things, when eaten in moderation, it won’t be bad for you. If you like the creamy richness of well roasted pork in a paté-like form, then this is for you.

Ingredients

Method

Heat the oven to 120°c.

Remove the rind from the pork (keeping as much of the fat on the meat as possible), then chop it into roughly 3cm pieces and put it into an oven proof dish with a lid along with all the other ingredients.

Put the dish into the oven and cook it for 6 hours. When it is cooked, remove it from the oven and allow it to cool to room temperature.

Put everything into a sieve over another bowl. Then put the meat back into the oven proof dish and put the sieved fat to one side, keeping it for later.

Using two forks, finely shred the meat into strands by pulling it apart. This takes a while but the finer you can get it the better.

Keep shredding until all of the pork is in fibres. Then season it plentifully with salt & pepper (because it will be served cold, you need more seasoning than you otherwise would).

Pour all of the fat into the bowl with the meat, mix it together and then tip the mixture into the final serving dish. Then cover the dish with cling-film/plastic-wrap and put it into the fridge to set overnight.